House to Investigate South Carolina Hacking

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) - House lawmakers have set up a panel to investigate ways to increase South Carolina's cybersecurity after the hacking of millions of taxpayers' personal data.

House Speaker Bobby Harrell said Thursday he had appointed 10 Republicans and Democrats to an investigative committee. Harrell says the panel will take testimony, give legislators a full report on what went wrong and make recommendations for how to better safeguard information.

In October, Gov. Nikki Haley announced that Department of Revenue computer servers had been hacked. The tab for her administration's response to the theft is nearly $20 million so far.

State senators have already held several meetings of their own panel. On Wednesday, the chief of the state's information technology division told senators that responsibility for monitoring agency cybersecurity should be centralized.